From an Iowa cornfield, a man heard voices. What he heard became a mantra. It became the signature line of a movie, "Field of Dreams.''

"If you build it,'' he heard, "they will come.''

There are many dreams for Huntsville.

There is much needed to be built.

Downtown is in the early stages of being resculpted to attract locals after dark and entice visitors away from distant hotels, restaurants and stores.

The city has outdated and insufficient sports facilities - as owners and management of Huntsville's pro franchises have long said - with only modest appeal for spectators and participants alike. The Huntsville Stars play in the second-oldest park in their league. The Flight, Channel Cats and Vipers are in an arena with average amenities for the casual fan, and little for the big-dollar sponsors that fuel the teams.

Alas, sports in this community make no sense to the type of bottom-line folks who populate the area. Much money should/could/would be spent to update the spectator sites and provide better and more participatory sport venues to compare with those in neighboring cities.

The expense side of the ledger for any sort of development can't be balanced with the profit side. Expenses for building are enormous. Profits from that building are often the nebulous "quality of life,'' to which no price tag can be attached.

Huntsville is hearing voices now.

The interesting thing to await is who shuts their ears - and who listens, who chases a dream.

Dollars leaving

Every weekend, it seemed to Mayor Loretta Spencer, her grandchildren were leaving Huntsville. They were headed elsewhere in the state and the region to participate in sporting events. It didn't go unnoticed by Spencer that the families and players on these various teams were leaving with full pockets and returning with those same pockets considerably less full.

"I saw the dollars going outside the city,'' she says.

"We always had local teams participating (in various events), so our concept was to let us be the host for a change.''

Therein is the genesis of the Huntsville Sports Commission, an organization established several years ago but now finally growing into its own. The nonprofit organization is overseen by a 15-person group of volunteers, appointed by the mayor and City Council, but with the lion's share of the business conducted by Executive Director Greg Patterson, the former Huntsville High football coach.

Patterson has a simple task with difficult challenges: Bring in a variety of sporting events to Huntsville to help boost the economy.

Those with the most impact are the sort of events to which Spencer would see her grandkids headed.

"The money-maker for the city of Huntsville is youth sports,'' Patterson says. "Because when a youth team comes into town, they bring parents, brothers and sisters and grandparents. There is much more money involved in a youth event than an adult event.

"Our mission, as one guy put it, is to put heads on beds and sell cheeseburgers. We want to put people in our hotels and restaurants and malls and the Space and Rocket Center.''

However, there is a stumbling block. As Patterson bids against other cities for events, Huntsville's facilities often come up short. That means spending money to make money. As has been done with improvements to the John Hunt soccer complex, the new Merrimack soccer complex and new tennis courts.

With capital improvements such as these, which will lure out-of-town participants, there is substantial return to the community; figure somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 per day spent per overnight visitor for sporting events. Ralph Stone, the city's recreation director and a Sports Commission member, says the facility investment makes sense.

"In the long run," he says, "they pay for themselves.''

Big-screen dreams

Movie theaters, alone, both present and in the plans, will employ hundreds of people in Madison County.

Rave Motion Pictures, a Dallas company that owns and operates movie theaters in eight states, predominantly in the South, has said it will open an 18-screen theater in Jones Valley behind the Target shopping center.

The complex will seat 4,090 and is scheduled to open in November. Regal Cinemas plans a 16-screen theater at the proposed World Famous Bridge Street project in Cummings Research Park's new commercial district. Plans for Bridge Street, at Research Park Boulevard and Old Madison Pike, call for three or four apartment or condominium towers, a hotel conference center, offices and a promenade of shops and restaurants over a man-made lake. Construction is expected to start next summer and take two years.

The Jones Valley project, combined with Bridge Street's 16 theaters and a four-screen cinema planned for the new Providence Village subdivision off U.S. 72 West, will give the city six theater complexes and a total of 78 screens and lots of jobs. The Providence theater will include a restaurant.

"What will occur at Bridge Street, is that complex will offer new and improved and more services to the 200 companies that employ over 23,000 people," said Brian Hilson, chief executive officer of the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce. "It will be a way of bettering Research Park as a way to do business. It will be good for the entire community."

Downtown

The new projects slated for downtown also should have a positive effect on local employment.

Missouri-based developer John Q. Hammons is building a 10-story, 300-room Embassy Suites hotel on 2.5 acres beside the Von Braun Center's South Hall. The $40 million project includes a restaurant and is expected to create 200 jobs.

One of the biggest topics of conversation and controversy has been the $11 million, 75,000-square-foot Big Spring Summit tower, which was approved by the City Council by a 3-to-2 vote. The Summit will be built on the Church Street side of the city parking deck overlooking the Big Spring lagoon. The seven-story office tower in Big Spring International Park could have two ground-floor restaurants and possibly a rooftop lounge.

Triad Properties, the company building Big Spring Summit, also has the option to build a second building. That building, potentially four floors and 31,000 square feet, could include retail shops, restaurants and condominiums, planners say. That building would be built farther up the lagoon front toward the VBC.

CityScapes Inc. already had a lot to do with the downtown's resurgence, bringing Pauli's ChopHouse, Humphrey's Bar & Grill, a deli and jobs along with it. The company also has a plan for two new concepts near downtown in the former Zesto spot at the corner of Pratt Avenue and Russell Street, but it has not closed on the property.

In the planning stages is a strip of storefronts on Jefferson Street downtown that last housed Hale Brothers Furniture. CityScapes President Ralph Gipson said that site will become two restaurant or entertainment concepts and 12 apartments.

Jones Valley growth

Jones Valley's Valley Bend shopping center started with SuperTarget and a few stores, but the addition of PetSmart, Barnes & Noble, Party City and Chili's, just to name a few, has created many new jobs and interest. Along with the new theaters, more stores and restaurants are planned for the area.

"The first thing to take note of in that area is the relatively high income level," said the chamber's Hilson. "There's a lot of disposable income, i.e., shoppers, in that area. What's happened in Jones Valley is they're presented with a great alternative to more established retail areas in town."

Stadium loses luster

In the past two decades, pro sports have provided Huntsville fans with great memories, whether it be a Jose Canseco home run or a Channel Cats championship. Trouble is, as Stars General Manager Bryan Dingo well knows, the fans have a great memory.

Many can recall Joe W. Davis Stadium in 1985, "when the stadium opened and when it was a showplace,'' as Dingo says. "There are still a significant number of people here who can remember when it opened and the buzz about that new 'state-of-the-art' facility. But that was 1985. And a lot of those people haven't experienced what is now a state-of-the-art park like Jacksonville or Mobile or Memphis.''

Three new baseball parks for Southern League teams have been built in Alabama alone since the Stars' inception. The most recent is in Montgomery, which officially unveils a new $28 million riverfront stadium in April.

The Stars are, by far, the longest-running sports franchise in the city. Owner Miles Prentice, a New York lawyer who headed a group that purchased the club from local ownership in fall 2002, vows he has no plans to move the team.

The stadium and the VBC Arena are "back-burner issues,'' Mayor Spencer says.

"I appreciate the out-of-state owners leaving the Stars here and working with us,'' she continues. "We can only do so much each year. But each year my plan is to do something to add to the quality of the team and keep the team in Huntsville. That's something we are committed to do.''

Each has had its political squabbles that have at times been self-destructive. Each has struggled to put fannies in the seats; that's a common bond they have with the Stars, who suffered a dropoff in attendance despite a prospect-laden team that reached the Southern League championship series last year.

Dissatisfaction with the VBC led Vipers owner Art Clarkson to announce plans to move his team to an arena he was hoping to build near Decatur, at the interchange of interstates 65 and 565. Clarkson acknowledged last fall the project was being aborted in terms of its original plans, although he still holds some hope for a new arena.

Clarkson's Vipers have been a money-maker in terms of sponsorships and season tickets, but attendance has fallen and the team didn't sell out a playoff game. (Read what you wish into this, but the largest crowd for a "sporting event'' was a Monday night World Wrestling Entertainment extravaganza that filled the VBC to the rafters.)

The Channel Cats brought hockey back to the city after a year's absence and overcame some internecine squabbles to begin the season with a bang. However, they are in a four-team league that would seem constantly - pardon - on thin ice. At least there is no facility controversy there; the VBC is an ownership partner of the Cats.

The Flight, affiliated with and supported by the NBA as part of the National Basketball Developmental League, isn't as concerned with finances as the other franchises in terms of keeping the operation alive. But with two original NBDL teams (Mobile and Greenville, S.C.) having already folded and with the NBA looking toward the Midwest and Northeast for NBDL expansion, there is constant speculation about the NBDL's future.

Certainly there is competition among the franchises for sponsorship support and fans. But there is also a kinship.

As Dingo says, "I think having a minor league team ... should create some civic pride in the people in the community. It's one of those quality-of-life things.

"I know not everybody enjoys minor league baseball or the Stars. Still, they should be proud it's a part of Huntsville. There are things here I don't have an interest in, but I'm proud of the fact they're a part of this community.''